News

Cultural Learnings of North Korea For Make Benefit Minor Nations of Rest of the World

Generally known as a purveyor of hipster style and nihilism, Vice magazine has actually put out some respectable reporting in its time. It's also known for its rambunctious travel guides to the underbellies of gritty, freewheeling places like Russia. The new, 14-episode Vice Guide to North Korea is an ambitious and entertaining hybrid that falls somewhere between serious journalism and ironic picaresque.

Vice co-founder Shane Smith and a cameraman bribed their way into the country and then got treated to the full panoply of pomp and diplomacy apparently saved for North Korea's few annual tourists. Never let out of eyesight by their state-supplied tour guides, they are forced to participate in a nonstop regiment of ideologically kosher sightseeing (the creepy People's Study House, a monumental statue of Kim Il-sung, the exploitation of child music prodigies at an elite elementary school). At every juncture they are reminded either of the evil of the "U.S. Imperialists" or the magnificence of Great Leader Kim and Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. This is partly done through laughable propaganda videos with awkward English dubbing that are sold all over North Korea, and which are featured in the film.

Vice's Shane Smith emulates Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il.

The cognitive dissonance of seeing Smith—in aviators, t-shirt, and blazer—interacting with these walking experiments in mass isolation is amusing and saddening, akin to watching some bizarro Borat. Many of the people he meets are wary of him; some, like a pretty girl serving tea in a desolate cafe, seem touchingly desperate for fun and liberation. Smith doesn't attempt many profound insights, but the images do the work for him, suggesting the grim realities beneath the government's dog and pony show.

I had a chance to talk with Smith (who was hungover, naturally) about *Vice'*s expanding multimedia ventures. He told me about their eight-part TV series that begins airing on IFC in Canada in the fall and which they expect to sell in other markets. "We just finished our second episode," he said. "Every show is going to be part travelogue, part adventure, part film. We're going to Nigeria to film a Nollywood film with this guy who's a pirate and takes all this oil booty. We just got back from Tokyo, where we were with Gaspard Noé shooting in the S&M clubs there. We're doing this crazy thing with Warner Herzog, also Harmony Korine, and narco-cinema in Mexico."